The Indian Dispossessed
eight chiefs, they replied that "it would be better for ten of us to die than that the whole tribe, all the women and little children, should be brought there to die, and die we all would, right there, rather than do what they asked."
The remaining two chiefs were induced to make a selection of land, and chose a location on the Quapaw reservation in the Indian Territory. Then the inspector returned, and continued his efforts to gain the consent of the Poncas. What he gained is told in the report of their newly appointed agent for 1877:
"In obedience to instructions received from the Indian Office, I left Hillsdale, Michigan, on the 24th day of April last, arriving at Columbus, Nebraska, on the 28th, at which place I had expected to find Agent Lawrence with the Ponca tribe of Indians en route for their new home in the Indian Territory. In this I was disappointed, as Lawrence arrived on the same day with only 170 of the tribe; more than three-fourths of the tribe having refused to leave their old reservation in Dakota, stating, as reported to me, that they preferred to remain and die on their native heath, in defence of their homes, and what they claimed to be their rights in the land composing the reservation upon which they were living, than to leave there and die by disease in the unhealthy miasmatic country which they claimed had been selected for them in the Indian Territory."
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